Humanity
by AGENT Kuma-chan
Summary: Edward/Bella. Dormant Muses Challenge. One night, in their clearing, Bella wonders if Edward really doesn't have a soul. If those kisses and love and crystal laughs were from an empty shell. Is that truly the case?


Sometimes, when the night was warm and sky clear, he would take her to their—already it was branded in her mind as theirs—clea

**Challenge:** #5—The start of something new. Choose a fandom/pairing/genre that you don't like/don't write much. Bonus points if you never wrote for the fandom before or hate the pairing/fandom.

**Fandom:** Twilight

**Pairing:** Edward/Bella

**Genre:** Fluff

**Warnings:** Possible OOC-ness, as I never wrote for any of the Twilight books. As well, I'm not a fan of the books or characters, so I suppose I might have ruined it. Also, my first time writing pure fluff, so…be warned.

A soul: something that is very human. A soul is something that defines people as individuals.

It's something Edward feared he didn't have.

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_Humanity_

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Sometimes, when the night was warm and sky clear, he would take her to their—already it was branded in her mind as _theirs_—clearing.

Tonight, Edward gently shook Bella awake, his eyes bright and filled with that something she couldn't describe but recognized.

It made his eyes look like depthless wells, filled with knowledge from times long gone, and all the more striking and beautiful. They sucked her in and she drowned in their warmth, until he smiled at her and leant down to whisper in her ear.

"Shall we go?" his soft whisper tickled her ear and made her blush. Even though he visited night after night, she never did get over how close he would get sometimes. He smiled at her when he saw this—he loved her 'human' reactions.

Not trusting her voice, Bella nodded and quickly placed her arms around his neck. She smiled softly as he carefully picked up the rest of her body so that he was carrying her bridal-style. He held her as though she was a glass object, fragile and breakable.

In a sense, she was. At least compared to him (and also compared to everyone else, when she thought about it. Her 'accidents' did make her….more susceptible to injury….)

Then, in a rush of color and sound, he was running through the woods. She kept her eyes closed, taking in the smell of his shirt while she listened to the night. Then, before she knew it, they were at their clearing and he was gently placing her on the ground.

"Wow," her eyes widened in admiration. "The stars…they're amazing tonight."

He sat down behind her and pulled her so that she was leaning against his chest. His eyes softened slightly as he watched her gaze out at the stars.

"Bella…you truly are beautiful," he whispered.

"Huh?" she turned to look at him. She blushed again, before replying, "Oh, no, Edward…you are beautiful. You're…like a god, and I'm just the peasant girl who is nothing at all like you."

"And yet, Zeus loved a mortal."

She decided not to reply to that—there were hundredsthousands_millions_ of ways that she could tell him that she didn't deserve this but he would somehow change it so that it sounded like _he_ was the one who didn't deserve her. And that was never true.

She decided to instead steer the conversation to something she'd wanted to ask for a long time.

"Hey, Edward, I've been wondering…" she hesitated for a second, unsure if she was going to cross a line with this question.

He noticed her pause and leaned down to her neck. Giving her warm, soft skin a chaste kiss, he mumbled into it, "Go ahead. Ask me anything."

"…why do you believe you don't have a soul?"

He froze for a moment, surprised. Pulling his head back slightly, he looked into her prodding (_stunning_) eyes before looking up at the sky.

"…well…"

"Edward, if this is too hard, you don't have to reply. Really, you—" she started to tell him before he continued.

"No, you have the right to ask. The reason I believe…" he paused for a moment, choosing his words carefully, "…I believe this because vam—we are monsters. My teeth, my strength, everything was meant to be used to hunt humans. To drain their strength completely and consume them. We…while we were once humans, in order to become this…we…"

He paused again, and it was during this time that Bella decided to respond.

"Edward…you don't need to answer that any more."

The pale vampire looked at her, curiosity in his eyes. "Bella, why did you ask?"

"Well…it's been nagging me for a while," she leaned into him, revealing in the feel of his chest, "and I didn't agree with you."

"Oh? Why so?"

She turned to look at him again, a serious look on her face. "Why? Because there is no way you _can't_ have a soul."

Deciding to humour her, Edward nodded. "How so?"

"Well," she noticed that his eyes were twinkling and she pouted. "Edward! I'm serious!"

"So am I. Continue."

"Fine. I think you have a soul because…you _love_ me. As hard as I find it to believe that someone as amazing and perfect as _you_ can love clumsy and plain _me_, the fact that you love me—love me with your now-still heart—proves to me that you have a soul. It's…it's hard for me to accept you can't have a soul when you feel all of these wonderful emotions…" her voice trailed off as she tried to find words to describe how she felt. "You—"

She was cut off by Edward. He placed a few more kisses on her neck before he replied to her, "If that's all it takes to have a soul, then I'd be very lucky indeed."

"But you _do_ have a soul! You—" she protested. How could he not understand that his witty and wry sense of humour, his romantic and gentle gestures, his _movesthoughtsactions_ all showed her that he did have a soul?

"However...for now, I would like to think you are correct. That maybe there is a chance for me to have a soul and not be a damned creature."

There were not many times that Edward would allow himself to kiss Bella, and from those times, the occasions he allowed himself to let go slightly were few and far between.

That night, under the starry sky, he kissed her passionately, taking her breath away.

Sometimes, at moments like this—he'd never admit it, of course—, he didn't really care whether or not he had a soul.

(sometimes he felt as though it didn't matter, or that he did have one)

At times like these, he was just happy to have Bella. She made that worry about damnation and wandering the earth like a cursed creature seem like nothing.

Times like these were when he was—not a vampire—just Edward.

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**A/N:** Reasons I don't write fluff—how do you end them? I hope this ending is satisfactory, for I had a feeling it would run on forever if I didn't do that….

(I don't like the ending myself, though).


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